Every month tens of thousands of new torrent files are added to The Pirate Bay, but what content do these files point to? New data shows that with 44%, most of these uploads point to copies of TV-shows and movies. Porn comes in second place with roughly a third of all uploads, up from one in ten a few years ago. The percentage of music uploads, on the other hand, is declining steadily, with audio only making up just 9% of all new files added today.

Despite numerous legal setbacks and continued pressure from copyright holders, The Pirate Bay is still very much alive.

With millions of visitors each day the site has earned a steady spot in the list of Top 100 most-visited sites on the Internet, and the notorious torrent index continues to expand. Over the past two years the number of uploaded files has doubled to nearly 75,000 per month.

Today we take a look at the various types of content being uploaded by Pirate Bay users, and how sharing patterns have changed over the years.

The chart below shows the number of monthly uploads from November 2004 until November 2013. In the early days Pirate Bay users added little over 2,000 files in a month. At the time audio and video were the most popular categories, with 35% and 34% respectively.

Two years later, in 2006, the uploads had already tripled to more than 7,000 torrents. Audio and video were still the most used categories, but the latter was now more popular (30% vs. 40%).

Pirate Bay uploads November 2004 to November 2013

While the number of uploaded videos continued to grow, the audio category did not. November 2008 was the month with the most audio uploads for The Pirate Bay, with 9,600 added torrents and 27% of the total. Last November less than 10% of all uploads were in the audio category.

At the same time, the software and games categories aren’t expanding much either, with both good for just 2% of total uploads.

The video category, on the other hand, continued to expand up to 32,000 uploads last November, which is good for 44% of all added files. One of the reasons that video is more popular is that there are many release groups publishing their own versions of movies and TV-shows.

Another category that has seen rapid growth, in more ways than one, is porn. During the first years of the Pirate Bay porn was good for less than 10% of all uploads, but by last November this had swelled to 35%.

This rapid growth can in part be explained by the fact that the torrent site made its porn category public in 2012. Before that it was less visible, as only logged in users were able to see the content.

Pirate Bay uploads per category, November 2013

The upload statistics show that sharing patterns have changed significantly over time. The current numbers reveal that video content is dominating the site, with nearly 80% of all uploads if we include porn.

Music, on the other hand, appears to be losing the public’s interest, perhaps because there are so many alternative ways to enjoy it nowadays.

It will be interesting to see how these trends develop during the years to come, and whether the growth in uploads will ever stop.